USA Today is making a big deal out of Obama playing more golf than Bush. Apparently Obama has played more golf in his first 10 months than Bush played in 2 full terms. Now Bush did quit playing golf 3 years into his first term, but Obama is still playing almost 3 times as often.

I say, AWESOME. He still isn't even playing once per week, so this is a good thing. Mr. President, you just need a good place to post those rounds and get some good statistic feedback...

bducharm says:Maybe if he plays more golf then he will stop spending SO damn much money!!!

10/26/09

C-4 says:If Bush's golf game is anything like him running the country, he should have a pretty mean foot wedge and I am sure he is pretty good with the pencil as well...GO OBAMA...play everyday...you can do what you want you were elected the President of America.

sindigo says:It is a free country, for now. He can play if he likes. I don't care. Maybe he is looking for the economy on the golf course like OJ was looking for the real murders by playing golf. :-)

Once his policies (tax/environmental) remove the $ from my pocket to play I'll be pissed while he still plays on my dime while I can't. Funny though how only Republican presidents get hounded about playing golf and not caring about the "little" guy and Democrats don't. Hmmmm....

10/26/09

Backquak says:Take a break, relieve some stress, play some golf. So long as it's a couple times a month, I say go for it Obama, but if its a daily thing, I say get back to work. Or maybe not, if he's more focused on golf, maybe he will forget about his agenda.

Josh says:Does ACORN put the ball in the hole for him or do they only do that kind of stuff for him in regards to elections?

10/26/09

six43 says:Great points! We should get Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly to sign up for Oobgolf so they can also post comments. I mean, c'mon, it really sucks to have a highly intelligent (e.g., president of harvard law review) guy in Office trying to undo all the wonderful things that Bush and the republicans accomplished (who was it that destroyed the country again?). I'm pretty sure that Obama's time spent golfing won't come close to setting the record for "absentee presidenting".....www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/11/politics/uwir

sindigo says:@six43: Too bad he was so busy with the Harvard (Hawvawd) Law Review that he didn't bother taking Econ 101. Any reason why a ton of his brilliant Harvard work hasn't been made public? Surely us dolts could benefit from his highly intelligent Harvard musings and observations. Or....maybe not.

10/27/09

Banker85 says:Oh i am sure you are all more than qualified to run the country... all a bunch of ignorant racist republicans if you ask me... BUSH WAS THE ABSOLUTE WORST PRESIDENT WE HAVE EVER SEEN. Obama has not even been in office for one year so i mean give him a break who cares if he golfs once a week or month or whatever. SEE this is why i dont like mixing politics with golf now im annoyed.

10/27/09

Cassie says:Seems Obama has spent more time in the White House so far than Bush did in 2 terms.
Really, we must give GW a break. He really wasn't in control of anything. He was just a monkey boy for Cheney, Wolfowitz and the rest.
He's a mental midget and he allowed himself to be manipulated.
Give him a break. Kinda like the kid down the street who must wear a helmet when he leaves the house.

10/27/09

brad6432 says:Really! Regardless of what anyone thinks of GB2 and BHO, the real story is how the story is presented. I have no problem with the POTUS playing golf. He/She should be able to play a round now and then. Problem comes from how the media reports these rounds of golf. When Bush played, the so-called media would say "The President is playing golf today while troops die in Iraq". Did the story of BHO playing golf yesterday include the 14 new US coffins coming home from Afghanistan?
Such hypocrisy.

10/27/09

cheymike says:@jessehunt. I am NOT a racist republican. I hate all liberals equally.

10/27/09

onedollarwed says:If any of you can name anything good that Bush did, go right ahead.... crickets, crickets. As for Obama, he still has time. Besides, most of the bailouts were essentially decided before Obama was elected.
If anything Obama's scorecard in infinitely better as he has not had sufficient time to cause the degree of suffering that Bush and Co. did. I didn't vote for either, and look to golf as a peaceful time away from this kind of bickering. After all you're not going to change anyone's mind by exaggerating, using the worst examples, and making fun of their guy.
Bush was severely handicapped by a lack of imagination, his use of religious zealots to alienate many moderates, and relying too heavily business people to provide public services. It was after all the holiest of holies - the free market, and the greed it fosters (from dems and repubs alike), that created so many problems.

10/27/09

onedollarwed says:If we are honest you have to admit that we are not doing much to help those in need. Just spending 2 seconds to pull the "party lever" does not entitle us to political immunity, or give you the right to shift all of our shortcomings to the other side of the aisle. We can blame any president for pretty much anything we like, and it's a sign of a weak character that somehow having criticisms gives you some kind of personal power. Do some good, if not, do no harm.

10/27/09

trikai says:Wow...tense much? I have some time on my hands so lets squash this right now. Obama plays golf. Great. GW didn't play as much. Perhaps GW isn't as coordinated as Obama. Obama plays basketball, GW rode his mountain bike. I think we see why GW played less golf.

You say Obama is "ruining the country". All this adding to the deficit means one thing...we print more money and if we said to all sides in the Afghanistan war - cease fire for a week - We could pay for health-care reform for the rest of our lives. What year was it that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction"?

Point is, golf is a great game. You spend hours at the range trying to put together that perfect round. Why don't you take that passion towards the sport and watch less Fox News and MSNBC and become educated on the subject you wish to call people names about.

They say there is no "I" in team but it also seems there is no "we" in America only "me".

Think about that next time you have a 4 foot putt for birdie.

10/27/09

Josh says:@trikai this statement alone is demonstrative of the complete lack of economic knowledge in the american people these days "All this adding to the deficit means one thing...we print more money". You're exactly right... print more money, the problem is that doing so dilutes our currency and essentially makes it meaningless in an globalized economy. Saying that it's no big deal to add to the deficit because we can just print more money is sheer lunacy. Unfortunately it's lunacy this administration subscribes to as well.

As for nationalizing healthcare I challenge you to watch and truly listen to Ronald Reagan's explanation as to why this is a horrific idea. If you really listen and take time to understand I think you'll see that the picture he paints is in fact inevitable if a government run health system is to be even remotely successful in a country with the landmass of the United States. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs

10/28/09

Josh says:The problem is that many of us (Americans) are thinking about what sounds nice and are accepting the crap the media is spoon feeding us without any filter at all.. I mean just think about it, we have Czars in this country, when did that term become acceptable for use to describe American officials? We have had the government openly attacking free speech in terms of their actions against healthcare companies trying to inform their customers of what they believed would be the outcome of the currently proposed healthcare reform (reference: www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/25/silenci and we even have the government attacking news outlets (reference: www.usnews.com/blogs/doug-heye/2009/10/13/attack imagine the outcry if the Bush administration had attached say MSNBC or CNN for reporting opposing opinions to his policy, do we get that with this administration? nope..

10/28/09

Josh says:Nothing is more concerning than a political administration or regime that begins trying to openly control any voice of opposition... especially in a country that reportedly celebrates free speech....

Ok, sorry for the rant, I'm done. Hopefully this is at the very least interesting to someone and stirs some thought.

10/28/09

KVSmith59 says:hmmm...I used to be WAY into politics and posts like this would get me all fired up....now I'm just old and have come to realize that political arguments really just stressed me out...especially on the internet...you can write 20 pages of your side of the story, and it won't change anyone's opinion....

Meanwhile, back to the original post. I'm a Republican and it doesn't bother me one bit that Obama golfs. Why do you golf? To have the occasional "fun"? To relieve the stress your job puts on you? To try and keep the competitive fire going? Those are the reasons this average Joe golfs.....I'm thinking that a man with as much responsibility as the President would maybe golf for some of the same reasons......

10/28/09

trikai says:@Josh. I love it! In no way did you try and incorporate golf into your rant. At least we know you have passion and that's a good thing. To answer your question of whether I understand the economics of currency, let me say, I do and I will argue your understanding.

You say if we print more currency then the value of the dollar will decline - inflation - but what I think you are forgetting to understand is our currency is not backed by gold. It is backed by production. We don't see inflation because in order to have inflation the money supply must out weight the goods and services produced in our country. Obviously since we are spending billions of dollars to create new armored vehicles and other supplies for the war, our currency is still back by a ton of production and therefore we have not seen any large increase in inflation. Even with the bailouts and stimulus you probably oppose.

10/28/09

trikai says:Nationalize healthcare? When did I say we should nationalize healthcare? I said healthcare reform. Perhaps if we paid a little more for HEALTH-CARE REFORM and supplied better options to a larger population of people our overall production rate and efficiency would help us become a more competitive country and keep inflation at bay and your dollars from dropping in value.

Perhaps if we all spent a little more money on golf and built new courses and increased the amount of people working at those courses and introduced new players to the sport and got rid of carts and made people walk we would all have jobs and be healthier at the same time. That would increase production and reduce the pressure on our current health-care system.

10/28/09

onedollarwed says:You beat me to the punch, or the Kool Aid! Golf offers one of the best types of exercise known to man - long walks. It is in FACT the best kind of low stress activity known to exist - for the ambulatory. It is only when people stopped walking medium to long distances regularly - markets, water sources, social visits, that our general health starts to fail. That plus low-nutirent, chemically enhanced foods, poluted water and air, and repetetivly stressing work, and blah, blah, blah....
Lose the cart and the spare tire! Keep your heart healty and happy with golf! Wow, pretty sappy stuff... look what you people make me do!

10/28/09

Josh says:@trikai You're right, our currency is not backed by gold but you're talking about NATIONAL economics as opposed to international economics right now. Your argument about production and prevention of inflation completely falls apart as soon as you think of things on a global scale, which is something that must in this day and age be automatically assumed. Your argument that inflation would be prevented because we aren't a gold based currency is in fact the precise opposite of what is true.. In fact when economies explode what inevitably happens is the country falls back to a gold standard. In the global market we are now in it's more likely that instead of falling back to a gold standard the countries currency would be replaced with one that had actual value associated to it. In fact several countries are banding together to discuss the viability of no longer using the US dollar as the currency with which oil is priced.... devaluation is already happening.

10/29/09

Josh says:@trikai Uh, when you say "pay for" health care reform what else would one assume besides government run health care... the government is paying for the war (well we are with our tax dollars) and your statement indicates a shifting of that money into health care.. ergo government funded health care...

Now if you mean actual REFORM instead of simply shifting to government run health care then sure I can get behind that.. reasonable reform:

Such as say, tort reform, simple version - if you sue for malpractice and lose you are responsible for the other parties legal fees. Immediately reduces frivolous lawsuits which reduces malpractice insurance exponentially and therefore costs.

10/29/09

Josh says:Also to your point about playing more golf and therefore creating more jobs... you just described trickle down economics pretty well.. you're a Reaganite!! Congratulations, you're a sharp fellow. Now if we can just reduce all the ridiculous government programs that we are paying for and lower taxes then we would have more money to put into golf and other job creating activities!

10/29/09

Josh says:@KVSmith59 Politics being a "taboo" topic is concerning and should be... If no one was willing to discuss things like this then the US wouldn't exist. I can think of very few things that impact future generations the way the results of political decisions do today, as a parent I'd feel pretty irresponsible if I just shrugged my shoulders.

onedollarwed says:Hey Josh, I think political spew is the next site over. You'll never win any allies by misquoting and mislabeling others' thoughts. Clearly (just reading above) you can't tell the difference between a discussion and an argument, somehow think others are calling things taboo. You are proving their points!!! The more you spew the worse you look. Fox is not news, wake up. Fox and other commercial media are advertisements. I think you should be able to follow the money, ay? Here's a hint... if it's a commercial venture, it's a commercial. And whatever they're selling, you're buying. How does it feel to be the mark? Everyone is selling something, even this wonderful site! If you are missing the point, then well, I guess you ain't too clever. So hit yer ball please, you're holding up play.

10/29/09

Josh says:@onedollarweed I don't recall mentioning that fox was anything other than a news outlet, in fact I showed MSNBC and CNN the same respect in that post. I never made any comments as to the merits of any of those outlets I simply stated the fact that one of them (in my world which doesn't really matter) is being attacked by the current administration. I'm fine calling FoxNews a commercial venture, just like CNN, MSNBC, etc.

Interesting that in a post accusing me of misquoting or mislabeling others you do exactly that yourself. Also ironic that you would tell the guy who's arguing the most for free markets and commercialism that he doesn't get that everyone is selling something... just an observation.

This thing got political way before I jumped in, I just just tried to get into a real discussion instead of just "Obama sucks".... "No way man Bush sucks!"...

Some of my best golf buddies are liberals, it's a common course discussion/debate. No one gets as pissed on the course as they do online it's pretty funny

10/30/09

trikai says:Sorry I got caught up in the post about the "Drive through window Rap". Brilliant!

@Josh. I use simplicity in a reference to "trickle down economics" because in theory it makes sense but let's not kid ourselves that it actually takes place. I think you can understand that. I use "pay for" because without government intervention, there would be no reform. You speak of tort reform, such as malpractice suits, and I agree, doctors should be able to work without the fear of erroneous litigation. But the government is the one that will ultimately pass that legislation down. Society takes advantage of the system, what ever the system, hence the reason for law makers and government and socioeconomic programs.

10/30/09

trikai says:@josh. I think we will have to agree, to disagree. I think it is a question of ideology really. Free market system view vs. a socialistic system view. We try to find a middle that helps the majority. Unfortunately, we have created the far right and the far left. Both equally destructive to the original process.

I think Obama should invite us to settle the argument on the back porch of the white house over beers and a round of golf. Preferably multiple rounds of golf.

10/30/09

Josh says:@trikai I like your idea. Beers at the whitehouse are definitely in order. I think a round at congressional followed by some beers on the back porch of the white house and we'd have it all sorted out. If not we could always repeat the next day and the next day until it was.

10/30/09

C-4 says:@bdcharm......com on now...its the american way...You didnt participate in hanging "chad" did you?....but you didnt give the election back....I JUST LOVE AMERICA!!

10/30/09

C-4 says:A black president(golfing)...the best golfer ever to play the game, BLACK...oh my gosh the world is coming to an end!

10/30/09

onedollarwed says:Josh,
You say... "and we even have the government attacking news outlets"

"hmmm...I used to be WAY into politics and posts like this would get me all fired up....now I'm just old and have come to realize that political arguments really just stressed me out...especially on the internet...you can write 20 pages of your side of the story, and it won't change anyone's opinion...." I don't see mention of any "taboo." KVS says "argument," you use "discuss."

10/30/09

onedollarwed says:KVS was giving some wise advice and you totally missed it. You seem to enjoy opinion, and you seem to get your marching orders from right wing think tanks. Oh you didn't know that? Well now you do. I said Fox was "not news." But I guess that's news to you, just my opinion, not The Onion, or Paul Bunyan. You are so totally trasparent and predictable it is sad. You can't even read others' comments correctly. We're trying to help you. You don't need to shovel propaganda at us - we've heard it all before. And Reagan is some kind of authority? I can;t figure out if it would be better if you actually had thoughts of your own - a real puzzle. But seriously....

10/30/09

onedollarwed says:Let's forget all that because, can we all finally agree, it won't do any good. I was pondering what golf can teach us about the presidency...
Golf is a wonderful mentor, and we come to realize when we master most of the physical challenges of the game (when you can finally hit the ball well consistently), that it's the mental mistakes which ensnare our progress. I'm particularly susceptible to mental errors:
1. "I'm having fun, why get caught up in scoring," (self absortion)
2. "Let's see if I can just zip it around this corner nice and tight" (high risk/low reward glory traps)
3. "Oops, I forgot to factor in __________!" (lack of focus)
4. "I'm doing great, I'm pulling out the driver!" (The invincibility complex)
And I'm sure what I'm forgetting to label I'm blocked to seeing anyway.
Public office offers the same chance to learn these kinds of lessons, unfortunately there are real consequences. Games in particular give us dramatic models with minimal damage.

10/30/09

onedollarwed says:I would hope that all Presidents have time for golf, for it helps us to know ourselves, our human limitations, to workshop honesty and its peace, and rewads good decision making. Golf is a game of decisions and consequences. If we do it right the world is a better place, for we become better people. Do it wrong, and well, you just spend money and pollute the local watershed.
Right, now commence the throwing of overripe fruit.

10/30/09

meddle says:Politics aside, you got to say that it's great Obama plays golf, and that it gets publicity. We all love golf and want to see it stay strong and popular, especially with young people. So isn't the fact that our young president plays good for golf?
Also, we all know the virtues golf instills in us, among them patience, humility and thoughtfulness, which are all important qualities for a president to have.
Lastly, Obama is still a man with a job just like us, albeit a more important job. I'm sure golf for Obama is like golf for us, a way to unwind and relax while doing something you love. Everyone needs something like that, and in a high pressure job like his it may be even more important to have. I know if I was president I would be out on the course a good amount.

10/31/09

trikai says:Look above! Are you kidding me oobgolf? We banter about politics in these posts but they go and run anti-health-care banner ads. Are you hurting for advertising revenue that bad? I think through just this post you can see we are a very diverse group who all love golf. Thanks for officially bringing politics into our golf enjoyment. Later boob-golf, I will track my stats else where.

11/1/09

ipv6freely says:I agree @trikai ... politics have no place on this website - especially the banner ads. Like Obama or hate him, he loves this great game like the rest of us, and for that, we should be happy.

Seriously... this post was doomed from the start to be a bitchfest. Why bring politics here? Silly imo.

Kickntrue says:@everyone... the banner ads in many cases run automatically based on the content magic google spiders read on a page. we didn't try to go solicit health care ads. as far as quitting the site because of this ... umm... if it hurt your feelings that bad i guess. i'd like to think you could just go to the next post and move on.

oh- we are accepting advertising on a direct basis... so if anyone wants to run banner ads for just about anything you want... email us.